MetaFilter posts tagged with science and astronomy

I miss Carl Sagan.

jiawen — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:06:54 -0800

I miss Carl Sagan . I miss Carl Sagan . I miss Carl Sagan . Previously. Inspired by .

Bubble Nebula

homunculus — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:44:13 -0800

Reprocess of Bubble Nebula Data. NGC 7635, also called the Bubble Nebula, is an emission nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia. It's created by stellar winds from a superhot star 40 times the size of our sun which whip the cloud of gas around the star into a bubble. [Via]

The Sun Is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma

Upton O'Good — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:49:59 -0800

...the lyrics to that last song were basically taken from an encyclopedia written in the 50s, and since the 50s, some remarkable things have happened...

In 1959, a number of songs about science were released on an album called Space Songs. One of these was later covered by the band They Might Be Giants: Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun Is A Mass of Incandescent Gas). Only one problem: it isn't--the song was based on an incorrect text from 1951. So they wrote an answer song to themselves: Why Does The Sun Really Shine? (The Sun Is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma). Bonus link: see for yourself! (previously)

cosmic spiral visuals

nickyskye — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:56:21 -0800

The Anatomy of Spiral Arms, shows how galaxies naturally evolve to form grand-design two-arm spirals. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D. A Visual Dictionary of Special Plane Curves. Spiral galaxies make up approximately 60% of galaxies in the local Universe. The Equiangular Spiral Grand Design Spiral Galaxy M81 l Barred Spiral Galaxies Are Latecomers to the Universe From SpiralZoom, an intriguing tidbit on spiral consciousness, from I am a Strange Loop Previously.

Galaxy Zoo 2

Upton O'Good — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 21:10:22 -0800

Galaxy Zoo 2: Help astronomers sort through 250,000 galaxies! The Sloan Digital Sky Survey found hundreds of thousands of galaxies which needed to be accurately classified; the original Galaxy Zoo project was a collaborative effort by tens of thousands of volunteers around the world to sort these galaxies into spiral and elliptical categories. Now, it's entered its second phase: describing the details of these galaxies. Read the tutorial, and then you can jump in and start classifying. For those interested in the science from the first Galaxy Zoo, there's a brief rundown on the site, and a number of papers on arXiv. Galaxy Zoo has appeared previously here [1,2], and features Mefi's own edd.

The Size of Things

nola — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:13:16 -0800

Welcome to the Universe - III: The Size of Things . . .we take a breif trip through the Solar System and beyond to see the size of the Universe. A youtube video by AndromedasWake about the scale of the Universe.

Happy 40th anniversary, mankind.

sexyrobot — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:01:13 -0800

Moon Landing Tapes Found! All the videos you've seen of the first moon landing are crap. Remember, back in the day, video cameras and recorders were two different things. So it went like this: camera on moon sends footage to Australia, where it's recorded on tape (and then those tapes were lost), then downsized onto a smaller monitor, which is filmed by another video camera, uploaded to satellite, and disseminated around the world. America watches it on TV, cheers. Some of this footage is filmed off of a television onto 16mm film. This is what goes into the national archives. Crap. So, the original tapes have been found (spoiler: they never left Australia). So what, right? How good could they be, recorded back in the late 60's and all? Pretty darn good, apparently...seems recording heads were much better than the output available at the time (like playing a Blu-Ray disc on a B&W TV), and several recent projects have shown that it's possible to extract very high resolution data from these old analog tapes. How hi-rez? High enough to see Neil Armstrong's nipples get hard. (be sure to click on that picture) So when can we see this amazing footage? Probably soon.

Did that star just blink?

borkencode — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:32:32 -0800

Tonight NASA is scheduled to launch the Kepler Mission (named after planetary legislator Johannes Kepler) with the goal of finding Earth size planets in orbit around stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the sky. Over the next 3 and a half years it will maintain a nearly unblinking gaze on the approximately 100 thousand stars in the region. NASA expects it to find about 50 Earth size planets, as well as hundreds that are larger. You can watch the launch live on NASA TV. Currently the smallest known exoplanet is COROT-Exo-7b discovered by the French COROT mission. (previously) Both the COROT and Kepler missions use the planetary transit method of detection, where a planet crossing the face of a star causes a dip in its brightness.

Homework Helper

netbros — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:39:07 -0800

World of Science contains budding encyclopedias of astronomy, scientific biography, chemistry, and physics. This resource has been assembled over more than a decade by internet encyclopedist Eric Weisstein with assistance from the internet community. MeFi visited Weisstein's Mathworld a couple years ago.

Citizen Science for Epsilon Aurigae

Upton O'Good — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:49:59 -0800

Once every 27 years or so, the mysterious binary star system of Epsilon Aurigae undergoes an eclipse, lasting nearly two years. This gives this system the distinction of having both the longest eclipse and the longest period of any known binary system. However, it is not clear why the eclipses last so long, or even what the structure of the system actually looks like--the main star is a supergiant, with a radius as big as the distance from the earth to the sun, and yet its light is dimmed for two years by something yet bigger. The next eclipse is due to begin in August of 2009, and as part of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009, amateur astronomers are being called on to make their own observations of the changing brightness of Epsilon Aurigae. If you want to try it yourself, you can read the training guide to find out how to do your own observations and report them. In addition, the two scientists who organized observations of the previous eclipse both have webpages [1, 2] which are coordinating the organization for the upcoming observation. If you want to learn more about the science behind ε Aurigae, a good rundown with links to papers is available here.

Venus's Missing Water

homunculus — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:26:07 -0800

Where did Venus’s water go? Water may have once been as abundant on Venus as it is on Earth. New data from the Venus Express suggests that the planet's lack of a magnetic field has allowed water in the atmosphere to be stripped apart and carried into space by the solar wind.

Enceladus

homunculus — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:52:15 -0800

Source Of Geysers On Saturn's Moon Enceladus May Be Underground Water. Earlier this year the Cassini spacecraft detected organic material in the geysers of Enceladus. The question now is, how's the fishing?

First Pictures Taken Of Extrasolar Planets

jason's_planet — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:02:54 -0800

First Pictures Taken Of Extrasolar Planets

Dark Flow

homunculus — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:28:16 -0800

Mysterious New 'Dark Flow' Discovered in Space. "As if the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy weren't vexing enough, another baffling cosmic puzzle has been discovered. Patches of matter in the universe seem to be moving at very high speeds and in a uniform direction that can't be explained by any of the known gravitational forces in the observable universe. Astronomers are calling the phenomenon 'dark flow.' The stuff that's pulling this matter must be outside the observable universe, researchers conclude." Here's the paper (subscription required): A Measurement of Large-Scale Peculiar Velocities of Clusters of Galaxies: Results and Cosmological Implications. NASA has preprints you can download: results and implications and technical details (PDFs).

twilight zone, the edge of light

nickyskye — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:28:55 -0800

The "terminator" is the dividing line between day and night as seen from on high. This shadow line is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight. Color is a microconsciousness. The "twilight zone" The current terminator The terminator on the Earth and on the Moon

The Alien is my Brother

Snyder — Wed, 14 May 2008 01:04:40 -0800

Vatican's chief astronomer states that belief in alien life does not conradict faith in God. Fr. José Gabriel Funes, a Jesuit preist and chief astronomer for the Vatican, stated in an interview in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, that, "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation." Fr. Funes goes on to speculate that aliens might be free from original sin, as well as stating the Bible "is not a science book," and that the Big Bang theory is the most "reasonable" explanation for the creation of the universe. (The original article in Italian.) Coincidentally, the UK's Ministry of Defence just released it's previously classified UFO files.

Stars In Your Eyes

Miko — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:36:12 -0800

See Saturn this Saturday April 12 is the second annual International Sidewalk Astronomy Night, a worldwide event coordinated by the Sidewalk Astronomers. The group, founded in 1968 by John Dobson (subject of this documentary), is dedicated to a sort of guerrilla astronomy -- experienced stargeeks bringing their really good telescopes out to places where people are. So even on your way to the bars, the shows, and the honky-tonk you can see stuff like this and this - like these people did.

There's a hole in the Universe, dear Martha, dear Martha

scalefree — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:16:50 -0800

Astronomers find a giant hole a billion light years across & located 8 billion light years away from us. They believe it could be evidence of another Universe at the edge of ours.

We live in a wonderfully insane universe.

brundlefly — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 01:18:55 -0800

NASA Astronomers Find Bizarre Planet-Mass Object Orbiting Neutron Star [via]

Race To Mars

richlach — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:35:01 -0800

"Somewhere on the planet are ten-year-olds who, someday, will be the first people to set foot on Mars" 300 scientists and space-experts contributed to what's billed as "a realistic vision of the first Human Mission to Mars" -- Race to Mars. Discovery Channel Canada used Hollywood special effects, but for added realism rather than ray-guns and aliens. On the website, you can argue about whether they got it right. www.racetomars.ca

Astronomers need your help

edd — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 04:46:44 -0800

A team of astronomers needs your help. It's not terribly easy to get computers to distinguish between galaxy shapes, but fortunately humans are not only very good at it, but seem to actually enjoy gazing out in to space. So, go to galaxyzoo.org, look at a few pretty pictures from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey , and help classify millions of galaxies and aid research in to how they form and evolve while you're at it.

Astronomy Day 2007

achmorrison — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 09:37:34 -0800

This Saturday, April 21, 2007, is Astronomy Day 2007. This annual promotion of astronomy started in California (pdf) in 1973 and has since spread around the country and the world. Science museums and observatories all over are hosting special events to celebrate Astronomy Day. Find a local club near you and start enjoying the night sky!

Big Science, Cold Science, Blog Science

geos — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:35:26 -0800

Welcome to the South Pole Telescope blog.

Hubble ACS, We Hardly Knew You

Brak — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:22:39 -0800

Hubble's ACS Has Died. Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys has apparently gone into safe mode, with little hope of return. The ACS was installed in 2002, and added amazing upgrades to Hubble's imaging capabilities. Though its lifespan was only projected at five years, scientists had hoped it would hold out longer. Though a final shuttle servicing mission is scheduled for 2008, the mission objectives plate is already too full to consider its repair. Alas, more of those beautiful pictures (as well as extended research capabilities) will have to wait until the James Webb Space Telescope is launched in 2013.

The Lights in the Sky Are Stars

jdroth — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:19:06 -0800

Universe Today is a news site for astronomy geeks. Don't miss its sibling, the Bad Astronomy Forum, which not only features examples of bad astronomy, but also discussions of space exploration and astrophotography. (If you like astrophotography, you're probably already aware of NASA's astronomy photo of the day.) But my favorite part of the whole site is the free astronomy eBook, What's Up 2007: 365 Days of Skywatching. If only it would only stop raining, maybe I'd grab some binoculars and go outside for some stargazing...